There was just one reason that Jason Taylor stood on the New York Jets practice facility Wednesday morning at SUNY Cortland, thick humidity spreading over his famously bald dome like cream cheese on a bagel.
It was Jets head coach Rex Ryan. When the don of NFL defenses asks you to come over to his side, the only smart answer is yes. Ryan tossed a free-agent proposal to the pass rushing specialist last spring, and at age 35 still being in demand is all the sales pitch Taylor needed.
“I was a priority to him,” Taylor said after New York’s first practice of the day, a 2½hour romp on a frying pan field. “It’s just the interest he expressed in me. You want to be wanted as a player.”
The 6-foot-6, 255-pound Taylor still has ahead-turning presence, as evidenced by his Q-ratings boost from a recent run on “Dancing with the Stars.” He insisted he’ll live right in New York City, because, after all, why would he want to be anywhere else?
“You can always get a good meal. Everything’s great about it, the energy and the excitement,” he said. “There’s always something to do.”
Ryan is all for Taylor planting himself in the hub of the action, as long as some of that involves collapsing opposing pockets and running over quarterbacks. These early days of practice are a defensive laboratory in which the Jets are scheming up the best ways to squeeze another impact season from a player who can help fill one of the few gaps on that side of the ball.
In 2009, the Jets led the NFL in fewest points (14.8) and total yards allowed (252.3) per game. Quarterbacks, though, rarely smelled the heated breath of New York’s pass rushers through their facemasks. The team’s 32 sacks tied it for 18th in the league.
Taylor made that stat his calling card in his prime, with 127 sacks in 728 games. But how many of those good old days are left in Taylor’s trick bag is subject to interpretation. He posted seven sacks for Miami last season, his second-lowest total since his rookie year of 1997. In 2008, he squeezed out just 3.5 for the Redskins.

“We’ll see. I’m not 28 years old any more,” Taylor said. “If I didn’t think I could play the game, I wouldn’t be out here. I can still play. But I’ve been doubted since 1997.”
Ryan’s pursuit of Taylor was a long one. The coach goes back a ways with Gary Wichard, Taylor’s agent, and the Ryan said he’d comment to Wichard that some day he had to get Taylor in his scheme.
“We wanted him to be a part of us,” Ryan said. “The type of pass rusher he is, the kind of player he is, the kind of passion he has for the game fits right in with the players that we already have. I think he’s going to be great.”
The Jets see Taylor best fitting in among a rotation of combo linebacker/defensive ends with Calvin Pace and Bryan Thomas. It comes down to what Jets jargon refers to as multiplicity. The more versatility the team can create in its defensive line looks, the more opponents have to prepare.
“We’re causing a lot of teams to waste time in practice,” said defensive coordinator Mike Pettine.
Pettine said the Jets are working backwards with Taylor. The first priority, he said, is to get Taylor ingrained in the team’s third-down packages.
Second downs are next, where Taylor will likely rotate with Pace. First-down defensive schemes are the lowest priority, situations where Pettine said Taylor will probably be a backup. The aim, Pettine said, is to keep Taylor with fresh legs heading into the final 15 minutes.
“I feel like the position I’m learning here goes back to my roots in the league,” Taylor said.
“One thing Rex learned from Bill Walsh a long time ago is you can never have enough pass rushers in the fourth quarter,” Pettine said. “We’re going to take care of him. It’s not like we’re going to be out here (for a long time) from a repetition standpoint.”
While formulating the best scheme for Taylor’s skills in an evolving challenge, the Jets already welcomed him into the team’s culture. Pettine said a picture of Taylor on “Dancing with the Stars” was spliced into a trainer’s power point presentation when camp opened.

“At some point, we’ll get him,” Pettine said of the joking. “He laughs about it. He’s seen so much. He’s not going to be fazed.”